Truth Wins Out was featured in a Windy City Times article this week that focused on our relocation to Chicago:
While Wayne Besen loves New York City, where he originally headquartered Truth Wins Out ( TWO ), Chicago has also always been a love of his.
“I’ve called Chicago my mistress for a long time—or ‘my mister’ would be more appropriate,” he told Windy City Times.
This December Besen moved TWO operations to Chicago.
The non-profit organization, dedicated to eradicating LGBTQ prejudice, found New York to be too expensive to base its operations from there, and moved to Burlington, Vt., a small college town with a population a little more than 40,000.
“We have a luxury in terms of [being] a small organization. We can run it as long as we have an Internet hookup and a satellite dish somewhere near by, we can run it,” Besen said.
But Besen said he longed for the resources and organizations that a bigger city could offer.
“We looked at other factors: livability, affordability, a strong LGBT community. Chicago just seemed like a really great fit,” he said. “Chicago just made a lot of sense. It’s an incredible city with a very strong LGBT community and it’s also a lot more affordable than Manhattan, or even Brooklyn now.”
As for the city of broad shoulders, Besen said he and his husband are looking forward to a thriving LGBT community, making new friends, and returning to city life.
“Just the energy,” he said. “You just can’t manufacture that anywhere. As much as you’d like to, you can only get that in a few places.”
Speaking of the Windy City Times, publisher Tracy Baim has an exciting new board game just in time for the holidays. It an LGBTQ trivia game she named “That’s So Gay:“
It features more than 2,400 questions of LGBTQ history & current events, can be played by two or more people and is ideal for parties and social events. As you know the phrase “That’s so gay!” has been used mostly in a negative context for decades. Some people use it as a way to attack or vilify our community and others use it in the fabulous context not realizing the damage it can do.
As with the reclaiming of negative words and phrases such as “queer,” this game seeks to turn “That’s so gay!” into a positive opportunity to educate our LGBTQ community and allies and even those people who use the phrase as an attack. Game producer & Windy City Times Publisher Tracy Baim stated: “Words can be a tool of our enemies, or can empower us in our work. This game hopes to break down stereotypes while having some fun with our LGBTQ history.
There are the well-known celebrities and media sensations but also obscure authors, scientists, athletes and pioneers. The scope of the game goes back thousands of years and across multiple continents, all with more than 2,400 questions that will tease you, taunt you & treat you to some amazing facts.” There are a limited number of copies of That’s So Gay! available at Chicago’s Women and Children First Bookstore and Gaymart. The game will also be made available to student and adults LGBTQ groups, including GSAs, as a fundraising tool, where they can keep $5 for every game sold.
Sounds pretty cool.
